PHA Board to Meet on Greene Next Week

The board of the Philadelphia Housing Authority will meet next week to review the predicament of embattled director Carl Greene. Greene admits to being mired in financial woes and now faces accusations of sexual misconduct on the job.

KYW’s Mike Dunn reports that the chairman of the PHA Board, former mayor John Street, says he will convene the board to review both the financial woes of Carl Greene (in file photo) and allegations against him of sexual misconduct on the job:

“The board will take a look at everything that’s gone on. This is not something that is just going to go away under any circumstances, without being fully and completely addressed, and the board is determined to do so.”

Street says neither he nor any board members knew of complaints against Greene of sexual harassment:

“That’s something that is new on the radar screen for me.”

But John Elliott, the attorney for the woman filing the latest complaint, says its unbelievable that board members did not know:

“The directors of the Philadelphia Housing Authority have done an abysmal job in supervising Carl Greene. He’s a serial sexual predator. They have been aiders and abettors. They have facilitated Mr. Greene’s conduct by covering it up and sweeping it under the proverbial rug.

Street doesn’t know if Greene will attend the meeting, but he says at some point Greene will have to answer the board’s, and the public’s, questions.

Greene is now on a leave of absence after a bank foreclosed on his $600,000 condo. Greene earns more than $300,000 per year.

Governor Rendell, who hired Greene, was asked why he gave him a contract that allowed Greene to keep his job even if Greene lost a misconduct case at his earlier job in Detroit. The Governor said Greene was needed to overhaul what he said was one of the worst housing authorities in the country:

“I don’t think its an understatement to say that right now the Philadelphia Housing Authority is the best housing authority in the nation. What Carl Greene has done to restore the public housing infrastructure is stunning.”